The last week has been rough.
And honestly, “rough” might be putting it lightly.
Between the death anniversaries of both my mom and grandfather, emotional roller coasters I didn’t exactly buy a ticket to ride, and just… life doing what life does, I’m grateful to simply be functional.
Not thriving.
Not pretending everything is perfectly fine.
Just functional.
And right now, I’ll take that.
Grief is strange like that. Time passes, life continues, and somehow a date on the calendar can still make your body remember something your mind has spent years learning how to carry.
Then you add everything else life decides to pile on top of it, and whew…
It gets heavy.
But somewhere in the heaviness, I found myself thinking about something else.
Safe spaces.
People love to say, “I’m here for you.”
“You can talk to me.”
“Call me if you need anything.”
And maybe, when they say it, they genuinely mean it.
But what happens when you actually take them up on it?
What happens when “I’m here for you” is met with the version of you that isn’t funny today? The version that doesn’t have an encouraging word to give back? The version that needs to talk about something uncomfortable, complicated, emotional, or repetitive because you haven’t quite figured out how to make sense of it yet?
Sometimes you start talking and realize they’ve stopped listening.
The subject changes.
The conversation gets redirected.
Or you get the famous:
“You’ll be fine.”
And maybe I will be.
Hell, history says I probably will be.
But sometimes I don’t need to be reminded that I’ll survive it.
Sometimes I just need somewhere safe enough to admit that it hurts while I’m surviving it.
That’s the part I think we miss.
Everyone is battling something. I know that. Everyone carries weight differently, processes differently, and has different capacities for what they can hold for someone else.
I understand that too.
But I also believe that every single one of us, at some point, desires a place where we can put some of our weight down without feeling like we’ve become too much.
A place where vulnerability doesn’t make the room uncomfortable.
A place where silence doesn’t have to be explained.
Because there’s irony in being told to open up, only to feel unheard when you finally do.
Then, when you decide it’s easier to shut down and keep everything to yourself, suddenly everyone wants to know why you’ve gotten so quiet.
Funny how that works.
So lately, I’ve found myself returning to the one place that has never asked me to hurry up and get over it.
Paper and pen.
Paper doesn’t interrupt me.
It doesn’t change the subject because my feelings got too heavy.
It doesn’t tell me what I should feel.
It doesn’t require me to package pain into something easier to digest.
It just lets me bleed.
And maybe that’s why I’ve always found my way back to writing.
There are things I can say on paper that I struggle to say aloud. There are feelings that don’t make sense until I see them staring back at me in my own handwriting. There are pieces of myself hidden between sentences that I didn’t even realize I’d lost.
Maybe getting back to the pen is part of getting back to me.
And that brings me to August.
I haven’t been in the best space lately, and instead of forcing myself to perform through it, I’ve decided to give myself this month.
Not to disappear.
Not to quit.
Not even necessarily to “heal,” because I’m learning not to put deadlines on things like that.
I just need room.
Room to write.
Room to create.
Room to work on some things I’ve been wanting to pour myself into.
Room to be quiet if quiet is what I need.
Room to figure some shit out.
And most importantly, room to pour back into myself.
I will continue working on the latest chapter of Capturing Shea because those characters have apparently decided they still have plenty to say. But there will be no scheduled August drops for Capturing Shea or Serenity’s Bliss.
The stories aren’t going anywhere.
Neither am I.
I’m simply removing the pressure of a deadline while I take care of the person behind the pen.
Right now, I’m thinking we’ll pick things back up somewhere around mid-September or early October.
But I’m not giving myself a hard date.
They’ll return when the stories are ready.
And when I am ready.
For August, I want to follow whatever pulls me back toward myself.
Maybe that’s writing something completely different.
Maybe it’s finishing something I’ve been afraid to finish.
Maybe it’s creating with my hands.
Maybe it’s laughing more.
Maybe it’s resting.
Maybe it’s saying no.
Maybe it’s sitting somewhere with my notebook and letting everything I’ve been carrying finally have somewhere to go.
I don’t know exactly what getting back to me looks like yet.
And for once, I don’t think I need to.
That might be part of the Konfession.
I need to get back to me, whatever that entails.
And if paper and pen are the safest place I have right now…
I guess that’s where I’ll start.
🤍 Kae
Kae Jaye The Writer 